Comments on: There's No Such Thing as a Great Poem

By: Peter Joseph Gloviczki

Peter Joseph Gloviczki — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:09:31 +0000

How to Like It by Stephen Dobyns.

By: naperville mom

naperville mom — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:32:03 +0000

Lately, ‘Insomnia and poetry’ by Erica Jong

By: Larina Warnock

Larina Warnock — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:29:45 +0000

To some degree, I agree, Tim. “Stopping by Woods” isn’t my favorite Frost poem (“Mending Wall” is far superior, IMO), BUT it is the only poem in 100 years or so to be recognizable by both a literary and a general audience. Granted, this was published at the very beginning of the mass media era, but it continues to be read and known nearly 100 years later. I think that if we’re willing to recognize that there are preferences and tastes that don’t match our own, we also have to be willing to look at the facts surrounding poems as we assess them. We can say that it’s a lame poem (it is) and that we don’t like it (I don’t really), but that doesn’t change the fact that the majority would say it’s stood the test of time and is a great poem.

My own list would include Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night,” Wallace Stevens’ “Sunday Morning,” Elizabet Bishops “One Art,” and William Stafford’s “Great Blue Heron.”

By: E. Shaun Russell

E. Shaun Russell — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:07:59 +0000

I’m not a fan of much of D. H. Lawrence’s poetry, but “Snake” is one of those poems that captures something universal, and does so with a vivid imagery that is real. So much vivid imagery in poems these days smacks of contrivance, in my opinion. “Snake” transcends that.

I’d pick Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” over “…Prufrock”, personally.

Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard” is probably a touch long for its own good, but it also captures something universally felt, and does it deftly.

How about “Ozymandias”?

And my personal bias probably colors this selection, but Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening” has everything I’d like to achieve in a poem. It captures a moment of apostasy even better than its visual art counterpart, Munch’s “The Scream.”

Just a few that I think deserve the mantle of “greatness”!

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:34:22 +0000

Ooh, lots to look up! Besides for Olds and Stafford, I’m not familiar with any of those.

Cafais–I thought about listing Lowell, and “Skunk Hour” in particular, but every time I reread those poems I find that they sound better in my memory than on the page. Jarrell’s a good selection, and reminds me that I’d probably add something by Wilfred Owen, either “Dulce” or “Anthem”.

Larina–I object to including “Stopping by Woods,” as much as I like Frost. That’s just such a lame poem — and yeah, it’s popular, but if we’re going there, we might as well just pick songs by Dylan and the Beatles. “To Earthward” and “Out, Out–” are my favorite, but both of them seem to me good but not great.

I think we’re just done with poetry being widely read. There are just too many alternatives. Think about it: 100 years ago you couldn’t listen to music on the radio; 150 years ago not even a phonograph, it had to be live. Poetry had a huge niche to fill, and very little competition. Now we’ve got to compete with movies, music, video games, the internet. The only way poetry will ever become mainstream again, as a consumed medium, is if an apocalypse turns back the clock 300 years. And I don’t want that happening. So our only shot is to focus on that act of creation, rather than the act of consumption. But that’s the topic for a new post.